Methods and apparatus for three-dimensional graphical user interfaces

ABSTRACT

A three-dimensional graphical user interface system comprises a media component configured to produce a signal comprising media content (e.g., a movie or television show being viewed by a user) and a three-dimensional graphical user interface (e.g., an interactive program guide). A display device communicatively coupled to the media component is configured to simultaneously display the three-dimensional graphical user interface and a media content image corresponding to the media content.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of the parent application Ser. No.14/053,843 filed Oct. 15, 2013, which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/713,065, filed Oct. 12, 2012,the contents of both applications are incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to systems and techniques forprocessing, viewing, and selecting media content within a homeentertainment system. More particularly, the present disclosure relatesto graphical user interfaces for viewing media content onthree-dimensional display systems.

BACKGROUND

Three-dimensional (3D) display systems are increasingly used for viewingmedia in the context of home televisions, tablet computers, smartphones,personal computers, and the like. Such 3D display systems pose certainchallenges, however, with respect to graphical user interfaces'i.e., howto provide the user with a graphical user interface that to allows theuser to easily interact with the media and/or the 3D display systemitself. For example, conventional program guides are typically providedas two-dimensional images at the plane of the display unit, while the 3Dcontent itself might appear “closer” to the viewer than the programguide, thereby partially or entirely occluding the program guide.

At the same time, consumers have expressed significant interest in“place shifting” devices that allow viewing of television or other mediacontent at locations other than their primary television set.Placeshifting devices typically packetize media content that can betransmitted over a local or wide area network to a portable computer,mobile phone, personal digital assistant, remote television or otherremote device capable of playing back the packetized media stream forthe viewer. Placeshifting therefore allows consumers to view their mediacontent from remote locations such as other rooms, hotels, offices,and/or any other locations where portable media player devices can gainaccess to a wireless or other communications network. Such placeshiftingdevices typically employ graphical user interfaces for selecting andviewing media content.

It is therefore desirable to create graphical user interfaces forselecting and otherwise interacting with media sources in the context of3D display systems and placeshifting devices. These and other desirablefeatures and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequentdetailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings and this background section.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

Exemplary embodiments will hereinafter be described in conjunction withthe following drawing figures, wherein like numerals denote likeelements.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual view of a graphical user interface in accordancewith one embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual view of a graphical user interface in accordancewith one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual view of a graphical user interface in accordancewith one embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual view of a graphical user interface in accordancewith one embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an exemplary placeshifting system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description of the invention is merely exemplaryin nature and is not intended to limit the invention or the applicationand uses of the invention. Furthermore, there is no intention to bebound by any theory presented in the preceding background or thefollowing detailed description.

In general, systems and methods in accordance with the subject matterdescribed herein are configured to employ a three-dimensional (3D)display system to provide the user with a graphical user interface(GUI), such as a program guide, that is itself a 3D image—i.e., has anapparent depth with respect to the display device.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a user 160 is represented schematically as aneye oriented toward a display device 101, for example, a liquid crystaldisplay (LCD), organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, or othersuch display. Display device 101 composes part of a 3D display system.In some embodiments, display device 101 is communicatively coupled(e.g., via any convenient form of wired or wireless communication) to anexternal component (e.g., a media component, not shown) that provides asignal 112 that is processed and ultimately results in an imagedisplayed by the 3D display system (e.g., as in “3D-ready” televisionssystems). In other embodiments, the entire 3D display system may beself-contained within display device 101 itself.

The term “3D display system” is used herein to refer to any combinationof hardware and software configured to produce one or more images thatconvey depth perception to a user. That is, from the user's point ofview, one or portions of a viewed image will have an “apparent depth”with respect to a surface 102 of display device 101, i.e., extendinginto or out of the physical display screen (along the x-axis as definedin the drawings). Such 3D display systems may employ a variety ofmethods, but typically involve producing offset images that arepresented separately to the left and right eyes. Such 3D displays may ormay not require special glasses, depending upon the technique employed.Example 3D display systems include, without limitation, multi-viewsystems, active shutter 3D systems, polarized 3D systems, andautostereoscopic systems. The nature of such 3D display systems are wellknown in the art, and need not be discussed in detail herein.

In accordance with various embodiment of the invention, display device101 is employed to provide user 160 with a three-dimensional GUI150—i.e., a GUI 150 that has an apparent depth with respect to displaydevice 101 (e.g., display device surface 102). In the exampleembodiment, for example, GUI 150 includes any number of conventional andwell known user interface components 152 (menu items, lists, buttons,check-boxes, and the like) arranged in a plane that is substantiallyparallel to display device surface 102 (which for the purposes of thisexample is assumed to have a substantially planar front face, asillustrated). The invention is not so limited, however, as described infurther detail below.

In one embodiment, GUI 150 comprises a program guide used in connectionwith media selection and viewing. The term “program guide” as usedherein with respect to GUI 150 refers to any form of interactivedisplay, menu, or user interface that allows a user to interactivelyobserve and navigate scheduling information relating to content frommedia sources. In some embodiments, the program guide allows selectingand discovering programming by time, title, station, or genre using aninput device such as a keypad, computer keyboard, remote control,gestural input (e.g., via 3D sensor devices) or the like. A typicalprogram guide provides information covering a certain number of days,e.g., seven or fourteen days. The term “program guide” includes, but isnot limited to, what are referred to by some manufacturers as“interactive program guides” and “electronic program guides.”

In FIG. 1, the GUI 150 is illustrated as a lying along a plane having anapparent depth between the user 160 and the display device 101. That is,referring to the coordinate system indicated in the lower right of FIG.1, GUI 150 is substantially parallel to the y-z plane, where the x-axisis substantially normal to the front face of display device 102. Theapparent depth of GUI 150 with respect to display device 101 and theactual content image being viewed (from the point of view of user 160)may vary depending upon the embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 2, for example, a media content image (or simply“image”) 210 (i.e., the movie or other programming being viewed by user160) may appear as a 2D image at the plane of surface 102, while GUI 150appears as a plane in three dimensions with an apparent depth closer touser 160. In one embodiment, image 210 is initially presented as a 3Dimage, but is momentarily converted to a 2D image (as shown) while GUI150 is being displayed to assist the user in interacting with GUI 150.

In one embodiment, referring now to FIG. 3, image 310 is a 3D image asshown, and GUI 150 appears as a plane in three dimensions with anapparent depth closer to user 160 than image 310. That is, the apparentdistance along the x-axis from GUI 150 to surface 102 is greater thanthe apparent distance along the x-axis of the closest (to user 160)portion of image 310. In other embodiments, the apparent distance alongthe x-axis from GUI 150 to surface 102 is greater than the apparentdistance along the x-axis of most of image 310, with some overlap (i.e.,GUI 150 may be partially “embedded” within image 310).

While GUI 150 is depicted in the above figures as a plane defined within3D space, the invention is not so limited. Referring to FIG. 4, forexample, GUI 150 may have a shape that varies in apparent depth. In theillustrated embodiment, GUI 150 is depicted as a portion of a generallycylindrical surface; however, the invention is not so limited. In someembodiments, the apparent depth of GUI 150 and its elements are static.In other embodiments, the apparent depth of GUI 150 and its elements aredynamic and may change over time—e.g., in response to input from user160.

The systems and methods summarized above may be implemented inconjunction with a variety of home entertainment devices and/or othermedia components. For example, the present invention may be implementedin the context of a placeshifting system. Referring to FIG. 5, anexemplary placeshifting system 1000 generally includes a placeshiftingdevice 1010 that receives media content from one or more media sources1020, encodes the received content into a suitable format (e.g., astreaming format), and then transmits the encoded media stream to amedia player 1050 over a network 1040 (e.g., a WLAN, the Internet,etc.). Media player 1050 receives the encoded stream, decodes thestream, and presents the decoded content to a viewer on a television orother such display device (or “display”) 1060. Similarly, the contentmay be viewed locally (with respect to placeshifting device 1010) via adisplay device 1030. In various embodiments, a server 1070 may also beprovided to communicate with placeshifting device 1010 and/or mediaplayer 1050 via network 1040 to assist these devices in locating eachother, maintaining security, providing or receiving content orinformation, and/or any other features as desired.

In connection with the present invention, display devices 1030 and/or1060 correspond to the 3D display device 101 described above. Similarly,the signal 112 received by 3D display device 101 in FIG. 1 maycorrespond to a signal produced by media player 1050 or placeshiftingdevice 1010, both of which may be classified as “media components.” Ingeneral, the media component is configured to produce a signal (e.g.,112) comprising both media content and a three-dimensional graphicaluser interface, while the display device (e.g., 1030 or 1060) isconfigured to simultaneously display the three-dimensional graphicaluser interface and the media content image corresponding to the mediacontent.

Media sources 1020 may include a wide range of sources now known orlater developed, including, for example, broadcast television, cabletelevision, satellite television, “video-on-demand” or similar sources,digital video disk (DVD) players and other removable media, video camerasystems, video game consoles, set-top box (STB) systems, Internet mediasources (e.g., YouTube), and the like.

Placeshifting device 1010 includes any combination of software and/orhardware configured to perform the functionality described herein. Inthe illustrated embodiment, for example, placeshifting device 1010includes a display interface 1011 (coupled to display device 1030), anetwork interface 1015 (coupled to network 1040), and a receiverinterface 1016 (coupled to media sources 1020), all of which are knownin the art. Placeshifting device 1010 also includes a user interfacemodule 1013 configured to provide interaction between the user andplaceshifting device 1010 (e.g., via various menus and otherconventional user interface components, such as GUI 150 describedabove). Placeshifting device 1010 includes a controller 1012 forcoordinating the operation of other components of placeshifting device1010, and suitable storage (e.g., hard disk and/or solid state drives)1014 for storing data received from media sources 1020 as well as otherdata associated with operation of placeshifting device 1010.

It will be appreciated that placeshifting device 1010 will typicallyinclude a number of additional hardware and/or software components(e.g., memory, controllers, digital signal processors, etc.), which havebeen left out of the illustration in the interest of simplicity. Forexample, placeshifting device 1010 will typically incorporate an encoderand/or transcoder module configured to convert audio/video or other datafrom media sources 1020 into a packetized format that can be transmittedover network 1040. Placeshifting device 1010 may also include a transmitbuffer module that temporarily stores encoded data prior to transmissionover network 1040 and adjusts one or more parameters of the encoding(e.g., the bit rate of the media stream) to maintain desirable picturequality and data throughput in view of the then-current networkperformance. Placeshifting device may also be configured to providecommands to one or more of the media sources 1020, e.g., to request adesired input signals from that media source. Such commands may beprovided over any convenient wired or wireless interface, such as aninfrared or other wireless transmitter that emulates remote controlcommands receivable by the media source 1020. Several examples ofplaceshifting devices may be implemented using any of the variousSLINGBOX products available from Sling Media of Foster City, Calif.

In some embodiments, placeshifting device 1010 incorporates all or aportion of the functionality typically associated with a particularmedia source 1020. For example, placeshifting device 1010 might be ahybrid STB or other receiver that provides transcoding and placeshiftingfeatures. Such a device may receive satellite, cable, broadcast and/orother signals that encode television programming or other contentreceived from an antenna, modem, server and/or other source. Suchdevices may also include a content database (stored, for example, withinstorage 1014) to support a personal or digital video recorder (DVR)feature or other content library as appropriate. Stated another way, insome embodiments, media source 1020 and placeshifting device 1010 arephysically and/or logically contained within a common component, housingor chassis.

In some embodiments, placeshifting device 1010 is a software applicationconfigured to be executed on a conventional computing system (e.g., apersonal computer, tablet computer, smartphone, or the like). In suchembodiments, placeshifting device 1010 may encode some or all of ascreen display typically provided to a user of the computing system forplaceshifting to media player 1050. One device capable of providing suchfunctionality is the SlingProjector product available from Sling Mediaof Foster City, Calif.

Media player 1050 may be any device, component, module, hardware,software and/or the like capable of receiving a media streamplaceshifting device 1010. In various embodiments, media player 1050 isa desktop computer, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a mobilephone, a personal digital assistant, a personal media player (such asthe ARCHOS® products available from the ARCHOS® company of Igny, France)or the like. In many embodiments, media player 1050 is a general purposecomputing device that includes a media player application that iscapable of securely connecting to placeshifting device 1010 andreceiving and presenting media content to the user of the device asappropriate. In other embodiments, media player 1050 is a standalone orother separate hardware device capable of receiving the media stream vianetwork 1040 and decoding the media stream to provide an output signalthat is presented on a television or other display device 1060. Oneexample of a standalone media receiver 1050 is the SLINGCATCHER productavailable from Sling Media of Foster City, Calif., although otherproducts might be used in connection with the subject matter describedherein.

The particular methods described above may be implemented, for example,using software executable by controller 1012, and then presented to theuser via display device 1030 and/or display device 1060.

While several exemplary embodiments have been presented in the foregoingdetailed description, it should be appreciated that a vast number ofalternate but equivalent variations exist, and the examples presentedherein are not intended to limit the scope, applicability, orconfiguration of the invention in any way. To the contrary, variouschanges may be made in the function and arrangement of elementsdescribed without departing from the scope of the claims and their legalequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a media player configured toreceive media content over a network; and a display device coupled tothe media player configured to display a media content image from themedia content with a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display screenof the display device; wherein the media content image is converted froma two-dimensional image to a three-dimensional image in the displayscreen to cause an element of the media content image to appear in athree-dimensional space defined by a plane of the GUI; wherein the GUIand the element of the media content image are each configured with anapparent depth within the three-dimensional space defined by the planeof the GUI.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the GUI and the element ofthe media content image are each configured with the apparent depthwithin the three-dimensional space that is dynamically changing overtime.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the GUI and the element of themedia content image are each configured with the apparent depth withinthe three-dimensional space that is responsive to user input to themedia player.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the GUI and the elementof the media content image are each configured with the apparent depthwithin the three-dimensional space that is static.
 5. The system ofclaim 4, wherein the GUI has the apparent depth that is greater than theapparent depth of the media content image within the three-dimensionalspace.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein a planar image of the GUI isembedded with the element of the media content image based on an overlapof an apparent distance that exits between each image.
 7. The system ofclaim 6, wherein the planar image of the GUI appear closer than is theelement of the media content image within the three-dimensional space toa user viewing directly of both images.
 8. A method comprising:configuring a media player to receive media content over a network; andconfiguring a display device coupled to the media player for displayinga media content image from the media content with a graphical userinterface (GUI) on a display screen of the display device; wherein themedia content image is converted from a two-dimensional image to athree-dimensional image in the display screen to cause an element of themedia content image to appear in a three-dimensional space defined by aplane of the GUI; wherein the GUI and the element of the media contentimage are each configured with an apparent depth within thethree-dimensional space defined by the plane of the GUI.
 9. The methodof claim 8, wherein the GUI and the element of the media content imageare each configured with the apparent depth within the three-dimensionalspace that is dynamically changing over time.
 10. The method of claim 9,wherein the GUI and the element of the media content image are eachconfigured with the apparent depth within the three-dimensional spacethat is response to user input to the media player.
 11. The method ofclaim 10, wherein the GUI and the element of the media content image areeach configured with the apparent depth within the three-dimensionalspace that is static.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the GUI hasthe apparent depth that is greater than the apparent depth of the mediacontent image within the three-dimensional space.
 13. The method ofclaim 12, wherein a planar image of the GUI is embedded with the elementof the media content image based on an overlap of an apparent distancethat exits between each image.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein theGUI is an interactive program guide.
 15. An apparatus comprising: amedia player configured to: receive a media stream and to decode themedia stream; and display a media content image decoded from the mediastream with a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display screen,wherein the media content image is converted from a two-dimensionalimage to a three-dimensional image in the display screen to cause anelement of the media content image to appear in a three-dimensionalspace defined by a plane of the GUI; wherein the GUI and the element ofthe media content image are each configured with an apparent depthwithin the three-dimensional space defined by the plane of the GUI. 16.The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the GUI and the element of the mediacontent image are each configured with the apparent depth within thethree-dimensional space that is dynamically changing over time.
 17. Theapparatus of claim 16, wherein the GUI and the element of the mediacontent image are each configured with the apparent depth within thethree-dimensional space that is response to user input.
 18. Theapparatus of claim 17, wherein the GUI and the element of the mediacontent image are each configured with the apparent depth within thethree-dimensional space that is static.
 19. The apparatus of claim 18,wherein the GUI has the apparent depth that is greater than the apparentdepth of the media content image within the three-dimensional space. 20.The apparatus of claim 19, wherein a planar image of the GUI is embeddedwith the element of the media content image based on an overlap of anapparent distance that exits between each image.